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China’s exports rose 17.7% in December, state media has reported, suggesting the country has overtaken Germany as the world’s largest exporter. The rise, compared to a year earlier, breaks a 13-month decline in trade as a result of the global downturn. Xinhua said total exports for 2009 were $1.2tn (£749bn), but total foreign trade over the year was down 13.9%. Correspondents say the figures will lead to new demands from China’s competitors that it devalue the Yuan. Last year saw a continuing decrease in China’s trade as the global economic downturn led to a fall in demand for its products. But in the last few weeks of the year, there was a far greater rise than forecasters had expected, with foreign exports reaching $130.7bn, up 17.7% on the previous December.

China’s General Administration of Customs (GAC) said exports overall in the year were $1.2tn, down 16% from in 2008, while imports were 11.2% down from a year earlier at $1.01tn. The politically sensitive total trade surplus was down 34.2% to $196.1bn, a fall of almost a third. The figures suggest China will surpass Germany’s export total for the whole of 2009, although this will not be confirmed until Germany’s full-year data is published in February. Continue reading →

Beijing will not relax its efforts to sell Chinese products overseas in 2010 and seek a bigger share in the global market, China’s vice trade minister said on Sunday. China, which may have replaced Germany to be the world’s largest exporter in 2009, is a “big trading nation” but not yet, a “powerful trading nation,” vice commerce Minister Zhong Shan said. “China’s exports in 2010 will grow, and there’s no doubt about that,” Zhong said, declining to provide detailed forecasts. China’s exports were hit hard by the global financial turmoil, falling 18.8 percent in the first 11 months from a year earlier. But the market share for Chinese products has increased in 2009 as sales from other countries have fallen even more deeply, Zhong told a forum at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing.

Other countries have blamed China’s unofficial policy of repegging the Yuan to the dollar since the summer of 2008 for making its products artificially competitive. China will feel pressure on its Yuan policy but will maintain “basic stability” Zhong said, in a reiteration of long-standing government policy. He said export growth is vital for China to drive economic growth and create jobs Continue reading →

China is demanding that a global agreement to reduce greenhouse gases prohibit nations from imposing trade sanctions, further pitting the world’s No. 1 emitter against U.S. lawmakers. The draft accord from a meeting in Copenhagen to forge a climate treaty bars rich nations from adopting trade actions tied to global warming. China said such language will avert “trade wars.” The U.S. Chamber of Commerce sides with China. “We will always oppose any practice of establishing trade barriers under the guise of protecting the global environment,” Yu Qingtai, China’s climate change ambassador, said in an interview.

A proposed U.S. law would impose tariffs by 2020 on imports of certain goods from nations such as China seen as not doing enough to cut emissions. American politicians and labor groups say pending legislation to cut heat-trapping gases must include tariffs on such nations because they gain competitive advantage. The dispute between China and the U.S., which had record $268 billion surplus last year in China’s favor, illustrates how trade is emerging as a central issue dividing developed and developing countries at the United Nations gathering in the Danish capital. Continue reading →

China has shown further signs of economic recovery with factory output surging and its export slump easing. Industrial output in November rose to its strongest position since June 2007, rising 19.2% from a year earlier. Consumer prices also grew year-on-year in November for the first time in 10 months. The index rise of 0.6% beat analysts’ expectations of 0.4%. November’s year-on-year fall in exports of 1.2% was the slowest of 2009, although growth had been expected. Imports rose 26.7% in November from a year earlier. This meant the country’s trade surplus – the difference between imports and exports – narrowed to $19.9bn in November compared with $24bn in October.

‘Strong figures’

“China’s trade is certainly recovering thanks to tariff cuts and efforts to keep the currency rate stable,” said Yi Xianrong at the China Academy of Social Sciences. Analysts said they expected exports to start growing in the coming months. There was further good news on domestic retail sales, which the Chinese government is actively trying to stimulate. The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said that sales were up 15.8% in November compared with the same time last year. The latest data on output, exports and sales generally exceeded the expectations of economists. “This is a strong set of figures,” said Lin Songli at Guosen Securties in Beijing. Continue reading →

Government officials, representatives from non-governmental organizations (NGO) and journalists overcrowded a UN climate change conference which kicked off on Monday. The Danish government had expected 15,000 participants for the event, a key meeting that would pave the way for an international agreement on further reduction of green-house gas emissions after the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol ends in 2012. But more than double that number, 34,000 people on Sunday asked to physically attend the meeting, forcing the organizer to issue a media alert and apply limits on the number of journalists and NGO representatives allowed to enter since the maximum capacity of the Bella Center, the venue of the conference, is 15,000.

“Due to these constraints, NGO delegates will be allowed access to the building according to a quota system,” according to which only a prearranged percentage of each organization’s representatives can get inside during peak times, the conference’s secretariat and the Danish government said in a joint statement. “Also due to the space constraints, a maximum of 3,500 journalists will be allowed access to the Bella Center at this point in time,” they said. For fear that even more people will come for the official opening ceremony on Monday morning, the organizer simply barred media and NGO representatives who arrive late from picking up their badges to enter. “No exceptions will be made,” they said. Continue reading →

Chinese annual car sales and production both exceeded 12 million units in the first 11 months of the year, state media has said. The China Association of Automobile Manufacturers expects car sales and output to top 13 million for the full year, the Xinhua News Agency reported. China has never produced more than 10 million cars in one year before. Despite the downturn and falling sales at most global carmakers, demand for cars in China is booming. In November alone, sales reached 1.35 million units, according to the preliminary figures.

The country’s largest carmaker, Shanghai Automotive Industry, sold 2.44 million cars to the end of November, a rise of more than 50% compared with the same period a year earlier, Xinhua said. State incentives, such as tax cuts on small cars, have boosted sales in China. Like many other governments around the world, China has also introduced subsidies to trade in older vehicles. Previously, only the US and Japan had produced 10 million cars in a single year. Domestic Chinese car sales overtook those in the US for the first time in December of last year.

China should consider raising interest rates to help prevent excessive liquidity in the financial system from creating asset-price bubbles, World Bank economist Louis Kuijs said. The “pros of higher interest rates seem to outweigh the cons,” the lender’s senior Beijing-based economist said in an e-mailed note today. The comments were first posted on his blog on the World Bank’s Web site on Nov. 19. Unprecedented lending by Chinese banks and a benchmark one- year lending rate at a five-year low of 5.31 percent have helped to fuel the nation’s economic rebound this year. The loose fiscal and monetary policies could lead to an asset bubble similar to Japan’s in the 1980s, according to BNP Paribas.

“Some are reluctant to tighten monetary policy because of low inflation, the traditional trigger for monetary policy action,” Kuijs said. “However, the recent global financial crisis has shown the dangers of neglecting asset-price increases in monetary and financial policy making.” In countries where capital inflows are a big problem, interest-rate increases may be counter-productive because extra money from Continue reading →